Plastic pollution: Coca-Cola reveals they produce 3 million tons of plastic packaging per year

Even though several activists and environment experts are trying to let people understand how the use of plastic is affecting the world, it seems like hardly multinational companies care about these issues. Recently the soft-drink giant Coca-Cola has accepted that they produce three million tons of plastic packaging per year.

The company, which gained $6.434 billion last year, is producing so much plastic that the amount is equivalent to 200,000 bottles a minute, a recent report stated.

As reported by The Guardian, the recent data on plastic production was shared with the Coca-Cola campaigner Ellen MacArthur, who is pushing for major companies and governments to do more to tackle plastic pollution.

Earlier the company, which refused to disclose the details, now revealed the amount of plastic packaging Coca-Cola had produced in 2017.

Coca-Cola didn't reveal the total amount of its bottle production, but when the packaging footprint is translated into 500 ml PET plastic bottles, the results showed the company amounts to about 108 billion bottles per year, more than a fifth of the world's PET bottle output of about 500 billion bottles a year.

Along with other 31 companies, including Mars, Nestle and Danone, Coca-Cola also revealed how much plastic it created as part of a drive for transparency by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation.

There are other 150 companies, including Pepsi Co, H&M, L'Oreal, Marks & Spencer and Burberry who have agreed to MacArthur's global commitment. But these companies are still refusing to go public with the details of the yearly produced plastic.

In the report, the Foundation stated that "The decision by more than 30 companies to publicly disclose their annual plastic packaging volumes in the report is an important step towards greater transparency" to tackle plastic pollution issue.

In addition, it said, "We applaud the companies that are publishing this data and encourage all companies that make and use plastics to disclose their plastics footprint."

Coca ColaPixabay

Ellen MacArthur Foundation:

Through the Global Commitment, businesses and governments commit to change how we produce, use and reuse plastic.

The organizations will work to eliminate the plastic items we don't need; innovate so all plastic we do need is designed to be safely reused, recycled, or composted; and circulate everything we use to keep it in the economy and out of the environment.

The Global Commitment has already mobilised over 250 signatories that are determined to start building a circular economy for plastic, including those companies, which produce 20 percent of all plastic packaging.

The Global Commitment and its vision for a circular economy for plastic are supported by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and have been endorsed by the World Economic Forum, The Consumer Goods Forum and 40 universities, institutions and academics.

More than 15 financial institutions with in excess of $2.5 trillion in assets under management have also endorsed the Global Commitment and over $200 million has been pledged by five venture capital funds to create a circular economy for plastic.